


a soft epilogue

by evilblubber



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Armitage "but who's going to stop us" Hux, Crack, Emperor Hux, Established Relationship, Fade to Black, Fluff, Hux and kylo are exhibitionists, I CAN'T POST SMUT PLEASE DON'T JUDGE ME FOR THIS FAILING, Kinda, Kylo "i want naps all the time" ren, Leia didn't ask for this, M/M, Off-Screen Murder, Public Nudity, Stormpilot kinda????, but hasn't happened yet, chapter two is where the benpoe feelings broke in, crack with feelings, everyone wants a nap, except not really because there's a convenient blanket, gratuitous hair braiding, hux and kylo have a chill and understanding relationship based on mutual trust and communication, hux and kylo need to calm down, its just mentioned sometimes, kylo is a lazy boi, neither did poe, phasma deserves to get paid more, sort of, the benpoe is a thing of the past, this grew feelings, which is all i ever write tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilblubber/pseuds/evilblubber
Summary: I think we deservea soft epilogue, my love.We are good peopleand we’ve suffered enough.- Seventy Years of SleepOr, Emperor Armitage Hux and his Consort are disgustingly in love, Kylo Ren has a nude sleepwalking problem, and everyone just kind of deals with that.Poe Dameron is tired of war, and somehow ends up having his hair braided by the guy who brutally ripped his mind open that one time.(The war has left everyone strangely hollow, and they all handle it differently.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> They aren't good people, but i'm having a bad week and these boys get to be happy and stupid.

Here is how it started:

 

Hux was born hungry, and Kylo has been tired for longer than he can remember.

Hux was a skinny waif who learned how to claw his way to the top, who bit and burned and killed anything that dared try and get in his way. Kylo was a terrified boy with a voice in his head that drove himself deeper and deeper until he drowned.

Hux was Armie, skinny and sweet and rescued a runt from a cat litter once. Kylo was Ben, violent and shaking and killed a temple full of his peers once.

They figured it out.

It took them a while. A few years of verbal jabs, a truly staggering amount of property damage, much more emotional damage, a number of secretive trysts in storage compartments and meeting rooms and offices, but they got there in the end.

And once they did, the galaxy didn’t stand a chance.

 

 

And here he is now. He’s

  1. the Emperor of the First Order. Getting here was not hard. At all. He was almost disappointed.


  1. sitting in front of Leia Organa, staring down at her. She is much, _much_ shorter than he expected.


  1. very, very tired. He is running on three days of barely any sleep and more caf than the human body should rightly be forced to consume. And he hasn’t seen Kylo in a _solid eight hours_ and it was making him irritable. That, and Organa.



 

Hux knows he looks intimidating; he’d been skeptical about the expensive fabrics and the cape when Kylo had suggested it, but he had to admit that he looked good in white. And the golden circlet that sat high on his brow ( _like a king,_ Kylo had whispered, eyes hooded, _like my king_ ) was understated, but apparently looked good enough that it made an impression.

The room he’d chosen for this is conference room he usually used for entertaining foreign diplomats, and he knew the effect it inspired. He still doesn’t quite understand what such an excess of wealth could do to intimidate—he grew up on starships, cold and sterile and orderly. He does not understand marble pillars or velvet curtains or a chandelier so ornate it cost more than his entire ship when he was General.

He is staring down his nose at Organa who is

  1. the Resistance hero and general bane of his existence (no pun intended)
  2. the mother of his husband, and
  3. very, very small. And tired. She looks nearly as tired as Hux.



 

He looks over the treaty one more time, lips pursed. To be honest, he wants nothing more than to throw it in her face and order the Knights to kill the whole lot of them. It would certainly be satisfying.

But he is Emperor now and that means that he must, at some point, stop murdering anyone who annoys him. This might be a good time to start.

“I’ve considered your offer of peace, General,” he says, looking up at Organa and her motely little crew. “And while I’d like to re-negotiate some of the finer points, I do agree with it overall. The time for petty squabbles is behind us.”

At this, the ex-trooper ( _why did she even bring him?_ ) bristles, jaw clenching. Next to him, the pilot nudges him in what he must think is a discreet manner, to calm him down.

“What would to like to re-negotiate?” asks Organa, face neutral, “We can—”

She’s cut off by the sound of the doors behind her opening, and all eyes in the room follow the noise.

Except Hux, who closes his eyes and breathes out _very carefully,_ and is honestly unsure of whether he should laugh or cry. No one moves, not even the two Knights set to guard him.

A man wrapped in an enormous blue woolen blanket stumbles in, eyes half-lidded from sleep and face creased from the sheets he’d been lying in. He’s mumbling under his breath as he walks past the slack-jawed occupants of the room and to Hux’s throne, where he flops and curls in on himself like a cat.

There is more silence, then a light snore.

Hux’s lip twitches.

When he is sure he will not break into hysterics, he looks Organa in the eye and says, “You were saying?”

Behind him, Kylo continues to sleep, uncaring.

 

 

Here is a secret:

it was Kylo Ren that killed Snoke, in the end.

( _it wasn’t even hard,_ he’d whispered, _I don’t understand. It wasn’t even. Why was it so easy?_ )

It was Kylo Ren that Hux used to destroy the Order and rebuild it in his image. Kylo Ren was the weapon he’d always needed, and he used him better than Snoke ever had. Under his guidance, Ren became more powerful than anyone could imagine, felled armies and planets and spilt rivers of blood.

Then, just when the New Order was built and flourishing, he simply stopped being there.

Just, stopped. No looming figure draped in black wielding a lightsaber that cut down armies entire, no Enforcer to strike fear into the hearts of the Republic as the New Order spread like a tumor over the galaxy. They swallowed planets and trade routes and solar systems, armed to the teeth and vicious and terrible, but Kylo Ren was gone.

Leia, who felt something like relief— _oh, he’s not dead, he’s not dead_ —every time she saw that masked terror in battle, was absolutely terrified. There was no official statement about the whereabouts of Lord Ren, and she wondered if he was dead.

Her boy, her son, was still a _live,_ she’d think, even as he killed and ravaged and murdered with his face covered by that damned mask, inscrutable and far away and she _can’t reach him—_

She hadn’t felt him through the Force in years.

But now—

 

 

Here is a secret:

once upon a time, a boy who built weapons fell in love with a boy who was made into a weapon.

There is something there—something poetic, or maybe it’s irony. Because Armitage Hux doesn’t want Kylo Ren to be a weapon.

He didn’t fall in love with Snoke’s watchdog, he fell in love with the idiot who stopped wearing a helmet a month after Starkiller fell solely because Millicent started sleeping in it. There’s no way you _can’t_ fall in love with that.

Snoke was tearing him apart, driving him over some kind of invisible edge over and over and over. He’d go _train_ and then stagger into their quarters bloody and shaking and sobbing. He’d cling to Hux with unsteady hands and shudder out words that ran together and made no sense, and Hux—

Listen, when the light starts going out of the eyes of the man you love because of some maniac living in his head, there isn’t much you can do besides fucking _murder the bastard._

Hux came to this conclusion exactly three months post Starkiller, and a month after Kylo had been adopted by his cat. “It’s alright,” he said, stroking Kylo’s hair as he emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet, “I won’t let this happen again.”

Kylo nodded, woozy, and said, resolutely, “I think I need to make my helmet thicker, somehow.”

“…that’s not what I meant, but yes. That, too.”

 

  

Here is a secret:

“Ren, why the hell haven’t you been wearing your mask?”

“Oh,” Ren coughed, and smiled a lopsided smile that made Hux’s heart stutter. “Um, your cat? Millie? She kinda started taking naps in it a week ago, and I haven’t had the heart to take it back from her.”

Hux stared, at him, blankly. Ren was still smiling at him, eyes crinkling at the edges.

_Great,_ he thought, _now I have to marry him, don’t I?_

 

 

 

 

Hux looks at Leia Organa, who is looking at Kylo, who is passed out on his throne.

The picture he makes must, Hux thinks, be ridiculous. His back is to the throne where his husband lies curled up, but he can hear the gentle snores starting up already. He’s also hopefully wearing clothes, this time. It’s hard to tell, when he cocoons himself in one of his many blankets like a demented, bantha-wool bat.

Hux has no idea why he keeps choosing to nap on the throne. Sure, after the first few times he’d decided it should be cushioned, but there are far more comfortable places.

(Maybe he should install a bed near the throne? It’s not like anyone can stop him.)

“That’s—” starts the Ex-Trooper.

“Kylo Ren,” says Hux, in a tone that is very carefully nonchalant, “just ignore him, that’s what we usually do. He’s dead asleep and nothing short of a star destroyer will wake him up now.”

There’s a muffled snort from somewhere in the room, probably from one of the Knights.

Organa, looking dumbfounded—as one often is, when faced with Kylo Ren being himself—says, “Asleep?”

“Yes,” says Hux, smiling blandly. He wants to cry. “Shall we move on?”

This is punctuated by a particularly loud snore from behind him, and a Knight coughing into their glove to hold in laughter.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the Resistance delegation are dismissed for the afternoon, Hux finally dismisses the Knights and lets himself bury his head in his hands and _wheeze._

_Their faces,_ he does not laugh aloud, _their fucking faces._

Still feeling bubbly and mirthful—which is odd, because he felt so weary before Kylo stumbled in with his blanket—he walks over to the throne, where Kylo has his cheek smushed on one arm and his legs draped over the other. They are long and pale and bare, and Hux runs his hands along the smooth skin. He can’t help it. He has to. Over a perfect calf, and thighs littered with scars—

Long black lashes are fanned out over a rosy cheek, and Hux watches them flutter as he runs his fingers under the blanket, over heated skin. His lovely lips twist, and part, pink and plush. Hux cups his head with his other hand, kneels in to kiss that mouth, still smiling because he feels golden.

“Mmm,” mumbles Kylo, against his lips.

The smile on Hux’s face freezes when he gets to his ass, and finds nothing but very warm skin, heated unevenly because there are still fresh bruises there. There isn’t much blanket covering him anymore. Which meant there wasn’t much covering him at all.

He pulls back, and looks down at him. All pale skin marred with freckles and bruises, and perfectly messy curls and one brown eye blinking open slowly. Spread out over his throne, soft and warm and _so very willing._

Kylo exhales slowly through his mouth, and shifts his leg up. The blanket falls off, and he smiles up at him, sweet and guileless. Like this isn’t some sort of blatant seduction. Hux swears he sees his toes give a happy little wiggle. An _I’m about to get laid_ wiggle.

“Fuck,” says Hux, resigned. He’s going to fuck him on the throne, isn’t he.

 

 

 

Here is a secret:

 

When he won, Armitage Hux looked at the man kneeling before him, carrying Snoke’s head, and fell to his knees. Because the idiot was _swearing fealty_ and—

Hux grabbed him by the face, and ran a thumb over the scar, looked him in his wild eyes, and said, “No! No, I won’t accept your fucking sword in my fucking service, no—”

And stricken, Kylo had said, “Have I outlived my purpose, then?”

Kylo’s voice somehow did not break on this question but Hux’s _heart_ sure fucking did. “No,” he said, and he felt hot tears fall from his eyes, and the Troopers were looking away because both their commanders were kneeling on the walkway and crying like children, “No, you won’t—I won’t want your sword, your service. I want you _safe,_ you idiot.”

“Oh,” said Kylo, quietly. He’s crying harder than Hux, somehow.

“You’ll never have to fight again,” Hux swore, “Never, for as long as I live.”

 

 

 

Here is another:

 

Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux orbited one another like binary suns. This was true even when they were co-commanders who wanted to kill each other—they were forever circling around in some sort of aggressive dance, that later softened into another kind of dance. With less insults and cruelty and hate. And less clothes.

The orbit did not break when Hux became Emperor, because Kylo texted him constantly despite being in the same palace. They shared meals, and a bed, and a shower, and a Force-bond, and found that they could not function if apart for too long.

Which was unfortunate, because Hux’s work meant that they were physically apart quite often.

This came to a head when Kylo realized he couldn’t sleep when Hux wasn’t there. He realized this because he had developed a habit of sleepwalking to where Hux was, at any given time. His mind just.  Picked out the bond between them through the Force, and followed that thread without bothering to actually wake his body up.

Hux was incredibly confused when his husband walked in to a diplomatic meeting and plopped on to his lap one afternoon while wearing a blanket. So were the delegates. So was Kylo.

“It’s not a problem,” he assured Kylo that first time, who was still on the throne and refused to emerge from his blanket, “it’s not like anyone can stop you. Well, I can, but I won’t. And everyone else is too terrified.”

“ _I’m_ not,” said Commander Phasma, drily watching as the Royal Consort forlornly peeked out from his blanket fort, “I think you two might be co-dependent. Please go see a therapist.”

“Can we execute her?” asked Kylo.

“No,” sighed Hux, “She’s too useful.”

“There is nothing healthy about being unable to spend an hour without each other,” said Phasma, “I know a few good ones.”

“Will you shut up about the therapist?” said Hux, glaring at her, “He can do as he pleases. Kylo, darling, would it help if I got more cushions for the throne?”

“That is the _opposite_ of a solution, my liege.”

Kylo stuck his tongue out at her. She would feel offended, but he’s wearing little loth cat-slippers. It’s hard to be insulted by that.

 

 

 

 

“Wait, my _mother?”_ yells Kylo, after Hux has fucked him on the throne. “I thought that was tomorrow!”

“Are you telling me,” says Hux, eyebrow raised, “that this was somehow not on purpose?” It seemed too perfect to not be on purpose.

Kylo, who now has a lovely bruise blooming on his jaw, buries his face in the junction between his neck and shoulder, and groans. And not the happy kind of groan, either. This is an upset groan.

“I’d have worn underwear if I knew she was here!” Kylo says, mournfully.

“Kylo. Darling,” says Hux, “You sleepwalked. There was no way you could have paused to put on clothes.”

Kylo, who has by now folded himself neatly into Hux’s lap, says, blithely, “I guess it doesn’t really matter. I mean, half the court must’ve seen my bare ass by now.”

Hux closes his eyes and snorts. Kylo had recently started sleeping in the nude, which was a dangerous habit for a serial sleepwalker to develop. They are both incredibly lucky that no one has got sick of them and assassinated them yet.

(Phasma is constantly ten seconds away from doing just that.)

This is followed by a few minutes of silence, wherein both parties bask in their afterglow, and then Kylo ruins it by saying, “Wait, I’ll have to see them at dinner tonight, _fuck._ ”

Which is when Hux starts laughing. Kylo pouts and thumps him in the shoulder, but Hux will not stop.

(a note: hux cannot remember laughing this much before he met Kylo Ren. He does not understand why, but something about meeting the love of his life and taking over an organization together made his chest lighter and more prone to laughter that he previously would not have allowed himself.)

“I love you,” he tells him.

“I love you too but this is a _serious problem_ , Armie—will you stop _fucking laughing?_ ”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe doesn't know why, but he steps off the little cobblestone walkway and onto the lush grass, and walks over to the man that isn't Ben Solo anymore. And sits down, mimicking his crossed legs, hands on his knees. A honeybee, laden with pollen, brushes past his ear.
> 
>  _What the fuck_ , he thinks, but it's distant. He feels a strange calm settle over him.
> 
> “You look like you need a nap,” says Kylo Ren, softly. His eyes are very dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update: this grew feelings. some darkpilot feelings. kinda??? except not???

Kylo puts on clothes, an hour later.

Or, more accurately, Kylo finds that Armie shuts up only when he’s being kissed, and the two of them proceed to do that for a while. And then, just when things are getting heated up again, Phasma walks in and demands that the Emperor “stop fucking your idiot and go deal with these people I am  _ this  _ close to murder, Hux.”

“You’re lucky you’re indispensable,” Hux tells her, and gently escorts Kylo to their rooms like they are on their honeymoon and not their third year of marriage. He can hear Phasma sighing the sigh of a woman surrounded by bullshit every damn day of her life, as they stride away.

This might be because Kylo is still nude, and wrapped up in a blanket. And Hux’s hair is ruffled out of its pomade, and his collar is askew. And there are little bruises peeking out from under said collar.

Also, he looks insufferably smug.

“IF YOU START HAVING SEX AGAIN I AM CONFISCATING MILLECENT,” she calls after them.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Hux snorts.

(Kylo isn’t so sure. Millicent is awfully fickle.)

Hux bows forward and kisses his hand when they are at their rooms. “See you in five hours,” he says, looking up at him with bright eyes.

“We’re terrible, aren’t we,” Kylo replies, grinning delightedly as Hux holds his hand to his lips. The other is making sure the blanket doesn’t fall. Mustn’t permanently scar the serving droids.

“Not like they can stop us,” Hux tells him, straightening. “Also, Phasma wants me to tell you that you’re obligated to wear pants to dinner. And socks, in case you get cold.”

“I will keep that in mind, my liege,” Kylo says, dead serious, because he can.

And so he walks into the room, and puts on clothes. It's also a dress, because he's a contrary person. He is still tired, and so resolves to have another nap in case he does something regrettable at dinner. 

  
  
  
  
  


Here is a secret:

After Snoke died, Kylo Ren felt something heavy and bone-crushing settle inside his chest, and it never went away. He was exhausted all the time, tiring quickly and losing focus at odd moments. 

 

Remember, kids: killing a man that’s been rooted in your head since you were a child usually has consequences. When a thing settles in your head and grows into it, pulling it out all at once might just unravel you. 

 

The fact that Kylo latched on to Hux both mentally and physically turned out to be a blessing; Armie has a mind that’s steady and grounding, and Kylo maybe slips into it more often than healthy. But that’s better than slipping away entirely.

All of this means that Kylo Ren, previously a feared wraith in black armor and a mask that looked like death itself, was often found finding a sunny spot to nap in around the palace grounds. Or on Hux’s throne. Usually there.

He is, of course, still capable of crushing armies entire. He’s just—s _ o tired.  _ As though he has fought and bled and screamed enough for a lifetime, and now his soul is weary and wants to sleep forever.

And people are still terrified of him—it’s just that he doesn’t cut such an impressive figure in a soft cotton dress and flowers in his hair.

 

  
  


Kylo decides to spend the rest of the afternoon meditating in the garden. 

He’s wearing a white dress that used to each his knees, but has been torn and ragged around the bottom enough that it ends mid-thigh. The grass tickles his legs as he seats himself cross-legged, still dew-damp from a morning shower—he’d be worried about the dress, but it’s already stained brown and grey from dirt because Kylo can’t keep his clothes clean. There was a  _ reason _ he wore so much black,  _ Hux. _

He breathes in, and out, and lets the universe fill his head. The sun beats down on him, and it feels like his bones are thawing.

The Force, which has felt strange and new to him since Snoke’s death, crackles around him like a living thing. It feels like breathing, like letting go, and the universe sings in his head,  _ hello hello hello I have missed you so _

He gives up on the perfect posture and curls up about twenty minutes in, eyes cracking open and fiddling with the wildflowers poking up out of the grass. It took a lot to convince Hux to keep the gardens a little wild, but honestly there isn’t anything Hux wouldn’t do for him, really. 

  
  
  


(This is a fact that has caused Phasma some measure of upset. Quite possibly because, among the three of them, she’s somehow become the Adult, and she didn’t ask for that burden. She has stated, several times, that she wishes she’d been killed in Hux’s wild grab for power.

As Hux’s highest Commander and leader of his armies, Phasma has many duties, but her foremost has somehow become making sure that the royal couple doesn’t scandalize the public too much.

“HUX, YOU CAN’T GIVE HIM AN ENTIRE PLANET FOR HIS BIRTHDAY,” she’d say, as calmly as possible.

“Why not?” Hux would ask, unrepentant. “It’s not like anyone can stop me.”

“He doesn’t leave your side for more than ten minutes, it’d be  _ redundant _ .”

“Yes, a planet won’t do. A star system, on the other hand—”

 

Or: “If you’re going to have a picnic in the throne room while using your cape as a blanket,” she’d say, “please ask your Consort to wear clothes.”

“I’m wearing socks!” Kylo would pipe up.

“That doesn’t  _ count!  _ People can s _ ee you!  _ It’s on the  _ holonet!” _

 

Or: “You can’t just keep having public executions because it makes Kylo happy. I think we need to look into  _ why  _ public executions make him happy, it’s a little disturbing.”

 

Or: “My Lord Ren, I don’t think  _ just _ your pyjama pants is proper attire for a gala.”

“She’s right,” Hux would say, squinting, “your feet might get cold. Here, I have your socks.”

“ _ That’s not what I meant and you know it _ .”

 

Kylo knows, distantly, that Phasma deserves better.)

  
  
  


There are bees in his hair.

He really should have thought first before just about filling his curls with flowers, but now it's attracted some very confused bees who think that he's some kind of very hairy bush. 

Well, it's not like he's using the pollen. He holds very still so as not to terrify the little buzzing menaces, as they happily swarm around his head. Their tiny, fuzzy bodies are already heavy with yellow dust, and they brush against his hair in their explorations, which displaces some onto his head and face. He blinks some out of his eyes.

There are about eight of them now, and they sniff at the bright yellow and white flowers he's twisted into a clumsy crown.

The Force thrums and pulses in time with their buzzing, the universe and the threads that run through every living being flowing in the same rhythm as the honeybees humming around his head. It isn't the heady burn of the light, or the sticky warmth of the dark swallowing him whole, but something calmer. Something that lets him  _ breathe. _

One lands on his nose, and he sniffs, closing his eyes as he continues to commune with the Force. The constant buzzing is oddly soothing, and, lying on his belly, he drifts off. 

 

* * *

 

 

Poe has no idea why he's here. 

Or, he does and he's mildly disappointed in himself for going along with it. In his defense, there isn't much one can do when General Organa puts her hand on your shoulder and says,  _ Poe it'd mean so much if you came with me. You deserve to see this through. _

Poe, who has bled and lost and died for this war, who wanted nothing more than to sleep and forget everything, could only say yes. 

Poe, Hero of the Resistance, was to stand in his decorated glory in defiance against that Hux, who'd decided he was going to be emperor. The Resistance was bowing out gratefully, and he was to be a part of it. The galaxy would be at peace, because both parties would agree to leave each other alone.

The Resistance would let the New Order win, because the New Order is less genocidal and more civic-minded than the First. Hux has proven to be less of an asshole than Snoke, and that apparently means that  _ everything is fine  _ and they should all make nice with the tyrannical dictator who keeps taking over planets.

And the Order, in turn, would continue to trade with the Republic and aggressively pretend that the Resistance that recently wanted to bring it down is not being sanctioned by said Republic.

Poe, who is under the impression that it's all a load of well-worded bullshit, want a no part of it.

And so, while the others are being entertained, Poe decided to take a goddamn walk.

It's not that he doesn't want to stay with Finn and Leia and the rest of them, but Poe can't  _ stand  _ it anymore. The whole thing grates on him, he's tired and he's strangely bitter when he didn't used to be, and the fight in him has died. Which apparently happened around the same time that the fight in the Resistance died, too.

And the thing where Ben just. Walked into the room in a blanket like he wasn't interrupting a peace treatise between his genocidal husband and his tired mother. That was also a thing that Poe wanted to process.

So he walks away and away and away into the gardens, which are strangely overgrown. The grass is long enough to brush his knees, and the little stone pathways are the only places not teeming with grass and closed and trees, no solid aesthetic to it. It seems out of place, next to the smooth marble and tasteful gold of the palace itself. 

_ Strange, that Hux would allow this _ . Poe thinks, as he sees a cat, fat and ginger, crouching in preparation to pounce on a butterfly, which has perched on blooming daisy.

What he sees next is even more baffling.

Kylo Ren, in a ragged-looking dress, lying on his front with his head pillowed on crossed arms, asleep. With flowers and bees in his hair. 

_ Bees.  _ In his hair.

His face is soft and peaceful, despite the jagged scar rubbing running down one side. His jaw is slack, pale skin flushed as the sun illuminates him like he's some kind of--

he looks otherworldly. Ben always did, even as a gangly little boy with ears that stuck out and a chipped front tooth. But now, larger and scarred and lying among wildflowers in a palace in the heart of a genocidal empire, he looks ethereal. His skin almost glows, and the bees humming around the enormous flowers in his hair somehow adds to the effect. 

Poe stops waking, and stares, dumbstruck. Its, its it's a shrinking scene, like something out of a fairy tale-- he looks like a storybook prince waiting to be saved, not the monster that ripped into Poe’s mind with a careless violence.

One eye, pitch black, slides open and stares at him. And he smiles, strangely predatory, even in a cotton dress and lying on the grass.

_ Run,  _ says something in Poe. 

“Dameron!” he calls out, voice deep and scratchy, like he had been sleeping. “You've wandered far from your little group.”

Poe has a million things he wants to say. Instead, he stares. He's pretty sure he can't close his mouth.  _ Run,  _ says something in him.

But Ben is moving, pushing himself up slowly, revealing his grass-stained chest. He seats himself cross-legged, and they still haven't broken eye contact. A few of the bees have left, wanting nothing to do with flowers that move, but two still buzz around him. Poe wonders if he's keeping them there with the Force. Surely no bee would stay that long. 

Ben pats the ground beside him with a large palm. Poe’s eyes follow the movement. It is a  _ very _ large hand.

“Sit,” says the man that was Ben Solo, once.

“But these are my fancy pants,” Poe says, “I can't get dirt on them.”

Ben smiles, and it's lopsided, and there's a flash of canine. He looks nothing like Ben Solo. Ben Solo never had this confident grace.

“Sit the fuck down,” he says, and it isn't a request. 

Poe doesn't know  _ why,  _ but he steps off the little cobblestone walkway and onto the lush grass, and walks over to the man that isn't Ben Solo anymore. And sits down, mimicking his crossed legs, hands on his knees. A honeybee, laden with pollen, brushes past his ear.

_ What the fuck,  _ he thinks, but it's distant. He feels a strange calm settle over him.

“You look like you need a nap,” says Kylo Ren, softly. His eyes are very dark.

  
  
  


here is a secret:

when Poe Dameron was younger and more bright-eyed, he'd abandoned the Republic fleet in favour of doing what was right. The First Order was rising; the unholy love child of bitter Imperials and enraged Outer Rim planets that were tired of starving all the time. 

And the Republic, the shining bastion of democracy and freedom, turned a blind eye to it. 

Kes and Shara joined up before him, but he soon followed. He saw the damage that these people could do, saw the hollow shock on his parents’ faces when it dawned on them that yhe war they once fought might not be over. 

And so Poe Dameron, hotshot pilot, joined the Resistance, starry eyed and determined to do the right thing. He met Leia Organa, his Actual Childhood Hero, and he was saving lives, and everything was golden.

And then  _ Ben. _

Ben Solo, son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, nephew of Luke Skywalker himself. Jedi-in-training, three years younger than him and carting a legacy that Poe was in awe of. 

He ended up spending quite a bit of time with him, mostly because the General off-handedly mentioned that  _ oh, I wish Ben would make some friends.  _ And he just  _ jumped  _ at the chance to make her happy.

Of course, it turned out that Ben was awkward and gangly and very angry. At all times. He scowled and his ears stuck out and he accidentally slipped into people's heads and answers their thoughts out loud without realizing it. He was somewhat irreverent, and had no flying skills to speak of, and held eye contact for too long, and--

\--and Poe,  _ of course _ , fell stupid and wild and headlong in love with him. 

  
  


here is a secret:

Poe  _ hates  _ him. He does. Really. Truly.

He's just-- he's just so tired.

 

* * *

 

Poe has no idea how, but his hair is being braided, with little white flowers being woven in.

“I would've thought that being Consort would give you better clothes,” Poe says. Because he's just suspending all disbelief. This is already ridiculous.

“Can't keep ‘em clean,” Kylo Ren says, “and Phasma pitches a fit every time I get dirt stains on one of my gowns.”

“ _ Phasma  _ does?” asks Poe, incredulous.

“Yeah, Hux thinks it's hilarious when I do,” he replies, almost fond, “and I think Phasma only cares because she misses being the Mom Captain to her Troopers.”

The Stormtrooper program had, a year ago, been disbanded in favour of another one. With less child kidnapping.

“...so she yells at you about your clothes?” Finn was going to piss himself laughing when he hears this.

“And the public nudity,” says Kylo Ren, and Poe snorts. “And all the sex-- and threesomes with foreign dignitaries.”

Poe stiffens.

“ _ No,  _ Dameron, I've seen how stupid you are for that ex-trooper,” says Kylo Ren, patiently. He plucks another daisy from the pile near Poe’s knee. “You keep looking at him like the universe was built around him.”

“His name’s Finn,” says Poe, automatically, then flushes. His eyes widen, and he says, voice smaller, “Wait, is it that obvious?”

“Not sure,” says Kylo, “since we only see each other in battle. And also since I indiscriminately dig through people's heads.”

Poe can't help the tiny flinch. The fingers in his hair go still.

They are silent for a while.

“Why are you doing my hair?”

“Why are you letting me?”

Poe turns, and looks the man that was Ben in the eye. His eyes are locked on him, almost consideringly. Poe has tensed up at some point, and he feels like he's missed a step walking down the stairs.

_ I hate you,  _ he wants to say.  _ You left your mother, broke her heart. You were supposed to save us, be the hope of the galaxy. Instead you fell and fell and dragged the rest of the world down with you, kicking and screaming. I hate you, and your war, and your smug husband, and what you've done to me and your mother and Finn. Finn, who still aches because of you and your stupid lightsaber. I hate you, because you broke my goddamn heart. _

“I'm _so tired,_ ” he says instead 

And Ben smiles, ruefully, and says, “Me, too.”

And Poe sighs, and turns back around so that Kylo could finish his hair.

“You have pollen on your face,” Poe says, after a while.

“So do you,” says Ben.

  
  


 

 

“You expect me to believe that Hux named his cat  _ Millicent?”  _ says Poe, in disbelief.

“You tried training a  _ porg? _ ” asks Kylo, both as a comeback and also because it is ridiculous.

“Listen,” says Poe, defensively, “firstly, they're very intelligent. Luke says they can feel the Force around them--”

“--Luke’s full of  _ shit _ \--”

“--and  _ secondly,” _ says Poe, forcefully, and Kylo sniggers, “it wasn't one porg. It was seven, and I was trying to start a circus.”

At this, Kylo actually barks out a laugh, loud and delighted. 

“I was  _ bored!  _ Finn and Rey were doing their Jedi Destiny Hero training and I was left to wander all of Ach-to with nothing but BB-8 and the porgs for company.”

Kylo is still laughing, and manages to wheeze, “Alright, that isn't as bad as the time you tried to start a droid revolution.”

“ _ One time,” _ says Poe, exasperated, “it was  _ one time.  _ And it would've worked, too, if Threepio didn't tell on me.”

“You convinced half the med droids to go on strike unless they were given a salary. Everyone already noticed.”

“Yeah, but they didn't think it was me! And you went along with it, too, you dick.”

“I just wanted the excuse to stand on a table and talk shit about everyone we knew,” says Kylo, unrepentant, “in binary, sure, but it was still fun.”

Poe snorts. “And you wanted Artoo to finally like you.”

For a second, he wonders if he should regret saying that, but Kylo huffs out a sad sort of laugh, and says, “That, too.”

  
  


* * *

 

When Hux finds his husband in the garden, lying on the grass with Poe Dameron and discussing the existence of droid souls, there isn't any part of him that's surprised. 

 

 

(“I miss him,” Kylo had said once, quiet and into the sweaty skin of Hux’s neck, “and what I did to him is irreparable. There is no turning back, from a violation like that.”

“It was war,” Hux replied, soothingly.

“Yes,” said Kylo, soft and mournful, “and we never really come back from a war, do we? I'll never have Poe back, because he's not the boy I knew and I'm not the boy he knew, and he probably sees me in nightmares.”

Hux hummed, thoughtful, and mentally debated the merits of reconditioning the entire Resistance into embracing Kylo, without reservation.  _ No, wait,  _ his conscience said, horrified,  _ let's not cross that line today. _

“And I don't know whether want him back because I'm so used to missing him that I don't know how to stop,” says Kylo, miserably, “or because I actually miss him. Or maybe it's because I'm allowed to miss him now.”

A silence, long and thoughtful.

“Now it's your turn to tell me a deeply rooted issue of yours,” said Kylo.

“I get off when I think of genocide,” Hux said, automatically. It's his go-to reply.

“Something I didn't already  _ know,  _ Armie,” Kylo said, sounding put-upon. 

Hux laughed, burying his face in Kylo's hair.)

  
  
  


“--let's be honest, Artoo has  _ too much _ soul,” Kylo is saying, as a bee scuttles haphazardly over his chest.

Dameron laughs, covering his face. And Hux, charmed by the scene, steps forward, out from behind a tree, and says, “I thought we decided that we  _ weren't  _ propositioning Dameron?”

They both pause. Kylo's face breaks into a brilliant smile, as he props himself up on his elbows. Dameron shoots upright, and stares at him.

“We're braiding each other's hair and talking about droid rebellions,” says Kylo, and he looks-- peaceful. A lot more settled than he was only a few hours ago.

“A worthy pursuit,” says Hux, because he has decided not to ask questions. He kneels forward, red cape pooling looking around him, and cradles his face in his hand. Dameron, clearly uncomfortable with this, shifts away slightly. Hux ignores him, because he can. The bee, also uncomfortable, flies off.

“I have been sent here to tell you that you should be present at dinner tonight,” he glances over at Dameron, who is fiddling with his thumbs, and adds, “Which is in an hour.”

Kylo hums, and the bee has come back to circle his head. 

“We can't keep a bee,” says Hux, just in case. “Or a hive. You can go and visit it, but we are  _ not _ taking the bees inside.”

Kylo wrinkles his nose at him. 

Dameron lets out an aborted sort of laugh, and Kylo's lip twitches. “I wasn't  _ going to, _ ” he says, leaning into Hux’s hand.

“Mm,” Hux sounds disbelieving and he knows it, leans in and brushes their lips together. He feels Kylo’s pull into a smile, sweet and slow.

Dameron makes a quiet gagging noise. Hux doesn't pay any attention.

“Remember socks,” says Hux, pulling back, a thumb running over the jagged scar on the side of his face. 

Kylo hums, eyes hooded. 

“See you then, my Emperor,” he murmurs, and his eyes are very dark.

“ _ Seriously?”  _ mutters Dameron. Neither of them look at him.

“It's going to be  _ terrible, _ ” Hux tells him, deadpan, “I suggest you take the shuttle and run. I'll tell Phasma you're dead.”

Kylo huffs out a laugh, and Hux leans back, on the balls of his feet and glances over at Dameron. And--and the flowers in his hair.

They both look at each other, awkwardly.

“You have grass in your hair,” Hux says, pointing to a side.

Dameron points at Hux's cheek, and says, haltingly, “Uh. Pollen.”

“Ah,” says Hux, wiping a hand over his face. “Nice flowers.”

“....thanks?” says Dameron, looking increasingly baffled. Hux wonders how this even happened. “Nice crown?”

“Thank you. I designed it and had it commissioned after I took over the Order.”

This apparently strikes Kylo as  _ fucking hilarious,  _ because he immediately throws his head back and laughs. Dameron and Hux look at him, bemused.

 

* * *

 

“Why do you guys act like you just got together,  _ you've been married for three years, _ ” says Poe, in disgust, “No wonder Phasma wants to kill you, she has to see that  _ all the time.” _

“We aren't that bad!”

“You know how you said I look at Finn?” Poe asks, “You two look like that, but somehow  _ worse!” _

“You're just surprised he has feelings!”

“...a little, yeah.”

“Don't worry, I was, too.”

They both snigger.

“You think I should go and change?” asks Poe, looking down at his rumpled and dirt-stained dress uniform.

“ _I_ won't,” says Kylo, gesturing to his once-white dress, and the bees circling his head like a demented halo. "This is absolutely appropriate fancy garb."

“Even the  _ bees? _ ” Poe says, struck again by laughter.

“Even the bees,” agrees Kylo Ren, solemnly.

_ This is fucking surreal,  _ thinks Poe.

 

 

* * *

 

“ _ Talk to your goddamn mom _ ,” Poe  is saying, as they walk hand-in-hand down the marble hallway, Poe’s fancy leather boots obscenely loud next to the silent pad of Kylo's socked feet.

“She's your mom, now,” says Kylo, both wistful and light.

“ _ No,  _ she's my childhood hero emotionally manipulating me into going to shitty functions,” says Poe, “and she misses you, and you miss her.”

“I killed her husband,” says Kylo, looking at him askance, “among other unspeakable things.”

“You'll talk it out,” says Poe, as dismissive as he might have been if Kylo just said  _ but I crashed the family speeder into a tree,  _ “just fucking call her. I'm giving you her private comm number.”

“--isn't that  _ treason?”  _

“Not anymore,” Poe sing-songs, “now, we're at peace and I am  _ not _ above getting Hux involved in this.”

Kylo groans, loud and obnoxious and  _ Ben Solo,  _ as they enter the hall. 

They're about fifteen minutes late, covered in dirt and flowers and there's  _ the goddamn bee halo, _ and their arms are joined and Kylo isn't wearing shoes, and

and Poe is smiling. For the first time in a long time, his chest feels light.

  
  


here is a secret:

“I haven't forgiven you,” says Poe, “I might never.”

“I know,” says the boy he loved, once. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fact that i haven't slept well in a year and need some naps forever really fucking shows also what is this anymore


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once her thoughts have ceased their wild storm of _benbenbenben_ , Leia turns to Poe. Her eyes are questioning.
> 
> Poe shrugs, and says, “I got lost and he did my hair for me."
> 
> “With flowers?” asks Rey.
> 
> “I tried to tell him that there were ants on them,” says Poe, “but that didn't stop him. I'm pretty sure they're in my hair, now.”
> 
> This answers absolutely none of her questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY TGIS IS SO LATE AND I DIDN'T RESPOND TO YOIR COMMENTS ON THE LAST CHAPTER
> 
> but I had a lot of things to deal with and the good news it I've written it all now. I hope it isn't disappointing??
> 
> Also I'm so!! glad that you guys like this you have no idea, your comments made me the Happiest

There are several eyes on them as they enter the hall. It also goes quiet almost instantly.

Poe feels oddly like he's having one of those vague childhood nightmares, like the one where you go to class in your underwear.

The hall is all marble and gold and transparisteel, the decadent gardens outside lending to the scene. There's a chandelier hanging overhead, all crystal and silver and the whole thing makes Poe very aware of the goddamn grass stains on his  _ one  _ fancy dress uniform.

Kylo, dressed in a thin cotton dress that was once white but is now a faded sort of grey and tattered around the hem, appears to give no fucks. The bees, still circling his head and the flowers around it in fuzzy contentment, only serve to make this impression more apparent.

The Resistance delegation, all nine of them, look at him in varying degrees of shock. Hux, sitting at the head of the long table, only inclines his head in a way that's almost fond, and says, “Ah, it appears my husband has found your lost Commander Dameron.”

“Honestly, I think he's gonna have to find himself,” says Kylo in a voice that carries, as though this were a sentence that makes perfect sense, as he glides on his fuzzy socks across the cold marble floor.

Poe, who is walking along the table and trying not to squirm under the stares, sighs. He sits down next to Finn, and mutters, “Don't ask.”

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” he whispers, softly. He has this adorable sort of bafflement on his face. Which, okay, makes sense. Poe’s kinda baffled himself, except that his bafflement is more resigned. “Is that Kylo Ren? Are those  _ bees?  _ Why do you have flowers in your hair?”

Just then, Kylo plops himself on the ornate chair to Hux’s right, hooking one leg over the arm. This exposes most of his thigh, and the little grass blades and some very vivid bite marks littered underneath.

On Hux’s other side, Phasma rolls her eyes toward the high ceiling. 

Poe knows for a fact that he's wearing underwear, because he asked. In retrospect, the fact that he asked at all probably warrants some kind of concern, but Poe is not entirely sure why.

He glances over at Leia, who is trying valiantly not to look like she's being punched in the gut. Her eyes are large and wide and wet, not unlike Kylo's when he's upset. She's staring at him as he lounges on the seat with that odd, careless grace, looking bored.

_ Fuck,  _ thinks Poe, and looks down at his plate. Everyone else, he realizes, has already started eating.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“The  _ least _ you could do,” says Phasma, looking exasperated, “was wear matching socks.”

“All of my left socks have been retired,” Kylo tells her, and Hux snorts. “So I had to commandeer a right sock from another pair. I thought you'd appreciate my efforts.”

Hux was the one who picked out the socks. One is pink, and the other is yellow with brightly colored cartoon porgs printed on it. 

Phasma sighs and returns to her food.

There's a bubbling sort of exhaustion in his joints, like lead that's crackling and actively pulling him down. His plate stays empty, and Hux does not ask. He does not move to fill it. 

He looks down at it, the shiny silvery sheen of it, and sees that there is still yellow dust on his face.

 

Remember, kids: having a man inside your head telling you that you don't _deserve_ to eat, that you're _pathetic_ and _soft_ and _spoilt_ and _too much_ and _not enough_ to deserve things like food does things to you. You might crush the man's head with your bare hands, and claw his fingers from your mind, but these things   _l i n g e r ._

 

The room is stiflingly silent, except for wet mouth noises and the buzzing of bees and minds, and so Kylo starts floating the peas on Hux's plate into a precarious tower using the Force.

Armie expertly stabs an escaping pea with his fork, with the unerring efficiency of a sniper turned General turned Emperor who married a Force user prone to bullshit. “I do hope you'll get rid of the bees after dinner,” he says, mildly. The pea is vibrating even as he puts it in his mouth. 

“You don't like them?” asks Kylo, nudging one with his mind. It hums and breaks free of the circle, migrating to the Armie’s bright copper head. It settles serenely on the side of his shining circlet, wings twitching slightly.

“Insects aren't ornaments,” he says, but does not dislodge the bee. 

Kylo hears someone whisper a heartfelt  _ what the fuck,  _ only to be shushed.

“It's only for a while,” murmurs Kylo. He hopes he doesn't sound too wistful.

 

* * *

 

Once her thoughts have ceased their wild storm of  _ benbenbenben,  _ Leia turns to Poe. Her eyes are questioning.

Poe shrugs, and says, “I got lost and he did my hair for me.”

“With flowers?” asks Rey.

“I tried to tell him that there were ants on them,” says Poe, “but that didn't stop him. I'm pretty sure they're in my hair, now.”

This answers absolutely none of her questions.

 

* * *

  
  


here is a secret: 

When Ben was little and chubby-limbed, a tiny thing with soft eyes and a soft belly, he had hair that grew far too long and far too fast. He grew too, of course, but the Force seemed to manifest in his hair, giving him a long, curly curtain that Leia was loathe to cut off.

Or, more accurately, little Ben screamed bloody murder if anyone tried to come near his hair with a sharp object of any sort. Often, this screaming slid into other people's  _ heads,  _ which was  _ incredibly  _ unsettling, and Leia decided that it wasn't worth the hassle.

However, Ben was a little boy growing up with a pilot father and a senator mother who were very busy, and a Wookie uncle whose idea of hygiene is a monthly shower. Thus, his hair was regularly a tangled mess of dirt and leaves and twigs and sweat and grime.

Unless, of course, Leia exasperatedly put aside her work and forced him into the shower kicking and screaming, and later sat him down to braid that unruly mane name into intricate ropes that twined around his little head. 

She'd sit there for hours, and Ben would be oddly calm, for a little boy so rambunctious that he'd become a terror to everyone he knew--later, she'd learn that her little boy would slide into her mind and leech off her own serenity. She would calm herself with the familiar rhythm of braiding his hair, and he would listen to the way her mind stopped whirling and settle down, too.

“My mother used to braid my hair,” she'd tell him, as he chewed contentedly on a ragged nail, “no matter how busy she was. It's an old Alderaanian tradition--our braids are meant to tell a story.”

“A story?” Ben would ask around his little thumb, even though he'd wedged himself in her thoughts so thoroughly that he must know this already.

“Mm, yes. There are different patterns to the braids, Ben, and---see the way I'm pinning these? That's for royalty.”

“I'm a  _ princess _ ,” Ben said, delighted, as he pressed his now-clean hands to either side of his head, to the buns securely pinned in place. 

Leia hummed, “I suppose you are.”

  
  


Here is a secret:

“This braid, see this loop, the pattern of the braids? It means  _ beloved. _ It's a braid you do for someone you like very much.”

“Like Chewie!”

“...yes, like Chewie,” she said, and decided to deny any involvement when Ben inevitably braided Chewie’s fur while he slept.

  
  


and another:

Poe Dameron’s hair is not long enough to loop around his head, but the pattern of the braids looks jarringly familiar.

_ Beloved,  _ say the clumsy little braids, dotted with flowers, and Leia does not know what to think.

  
  


* * *

 

_ This is so awkward,  _ says the Knight standing at attention by Kylo and Armie,  _ that it's actually physically painful.  _

Kylo hums at the sibilant whisper in the back of his mind.

_ But in a nice way, right? _ Kylo responds, watching as Armie skewers a bit of cake that is attempting to escape. 

_...listen, Master, we love you but the atmosphere here is so awful, I'm honestly considering defecting and starting a rebellion of my own. It's that bad. _

Kylo frowns, and looks around. Dessert has been served, and Kylo has nibbled at the icing on Hux's cake. It's light and perfect.

There had been, at some point, a discussion between Hux and Leia about trade between the Order and the Republic. That's all the conversation that  has happened, besides the whispering.

People are Not Looking at him. They are Not Looking at him pretty obviously, and this is worst in the case of his mother, whose mind feels frayed at the edges.

He glances at Poe, who is poking suspiciously at a dessert composed of a kind of egg that Kylo cannot name. It's disgusting. He looks up, and purses his lips at Kylo.

She's right, this  _ is  _ awkward.

Kylo sighs.

_ Talk to your goddamn mom,  _ Poe Dameron is trying to tell him with his eyes. He has lovely eyes, a deep, dark brown framed with long lashes and smiley lines around them. But he's frowning at Kylo, a soulful sort of frown. 

He wonders, abstractly, if this is how Armie feels, when Kylo looks at him with deliberately winsome eyes to get what he wants. He feels like he's missed a step walking down the stairs.

_ I'm gonna talk to my goddamn mom,  _ Kylo tells the Knight.

_ Master, that's the opposite of a solution, what the fuck. I'm going to quit, Phas and I are going to run away and start a bantha farm with three-point-five children and a pet tooka. _

_ Rude,  _ Kylo says, affronted.

 

* * *

 

“I should have taken the shuttle and run away,” Kylo whispers, leaning over to whisper in Hux's ear. “I hate myself intensely, right now.”

Hux hates himself, too, but for entirely different reasons. Why is he bothering with this farce. Why can't he just destroy the entire Republic. He's so tired.

Hux looks up at him, at the pinched moue of his mouth, the clench of his knuckles. He's huddled on one side of the chair, knees drawn to his chest, careless with his body language. 

There is no rage or murder to hide that his upset is leaning toward the  _ curl up and sniffle  _ kind-- there is no mask to hide the downward turn of his mouth. His face is as beautifully open as it has always been, and all the world can see it now. 

“It had to happen eventually,” Hux tells him, reaching over with a leather-encased hand to strike at the whitened skin of his knuckles. The skin there is rough, he knows, though he cannot feel it. 

Hux is kind of just assuming he means talking to his mother. It wasn't a difficult guess, Poe Dameron keep a looking over at Kylo with sad, soulful eyes and he can't think of anything else the man would want. It took Kylo about ten seconds to crumble. 

“I hate being mature,” Kylo says, mournful. 

“Do you want me to be there?” Hux asks him. “Or we could ask Desir to influence her with the Force to make it easier?”

“Um,  _ no?”  _ says the Knight behind them, breaking their menacing silence, “I won't? What the shit, your majesty? There is a limit to how ride-or-die I am, you know.”

They both ignore her. Desir Ren, exasperated, goes back to being menacing and silent.

“I think this is a thing I have to do alone,” Kylo tells him, earnestly, “Like killing Snoke, or murdering all of Skywalker’s padawans--”

“Force help us,” says Desir Ren.

“--or doing Poe’s hair,” he finishes, resolute.

“Alright,” says Hux, “I'll be nearby, and my comm will be on. And I'll keep the getaway shuttle ready.”

“You can't run away from the Empire you built,” says Desir, who has given up being stoic and threatening. “Is this how Phas feels all the time? Is this why she's ignoring you? I feel like I've aged ten years in one conversation.”

They keep ignoring her. 

“I love you,” Kylo tells him. 

“I know,” Hux replies, smiling.

 

* * *

 

They're just about to escape the Most Uncomfortable Dinner In The History of The Galaxy, when Kylo Ren gildes up to them on his fuzzy socks.

He actually seems to glide. Rey stares at him in distrust as they stop and stare at his stupid, placid smile. There are now two bees humming around his head. One had, at some point, left the hall with Hux, who claimed he felt ill.

 

* * *

  
  


(Elsewhere, Armitage Hux is kicking his boots off and opening a bottle of the strongest, nastiest Corellian whiskey he can find. It burns and tastes like  _ shite,  _ and he sighs happily in relief. 

“Why did I decide to take over an Empire,” he asks the fat cat that has deigned to grace him with her presence, weary down to his bones. “Why couldn't I be a moisture farmer, or something?”

He leans back, and Millicent is curled in his lap, and the sky above him is glimmering with stars he cannot reach.)   
  


* * *

“Excuse me, General?” says Ren, oddly stiff. The smile on his face looks panicked. “Would you care to join me for a drink?”

Leia’s eyes widen, and she looks at him with the same panicked smile. It must be a family trait.

“That would be lovely, Lord Ren,” says Leia.

Beside her, Poe whispers something that sounds suspiciously like  _ about fucking time. _

_ You don't have to,  _ Rey tells her, through the Force. 

_ I think I do,  _ Leia replies.

 

 

("But  _ why? _ ” asked Phasma. “Isn't avoiding the consequences of your actions the whole point of ruling an Empire?”

“ _ I know right,” _ said Desir Ren, from behind them. They ignored her.

“No, it's for the good of the galaxy--”

“--yeah,  _ right-- _ ”

“--and anyway,” said Kylo, firmly, “this is something I need to do.”

“Poe Dameron’s been giving him the sad eyes,” added Armie, the traitor.

“Oh my  _ god _ .”)

 

* * *

 

 

“He's gonna kill her,” whispers Finn, grabbing Rey’s arm in panic. “Ohmigod he's gonna  _ kill her. _ ”

And Rey doesn't blame him because Kylo Ren extended one arm graciously like a polite host and Leia had taken it like a charmed guest and now he is leading her away by the arm with that wraith of a Knight looming behind them like they were never at war and he had never betrayed her entirely.

“She'll be fine,” Poe reassures him, patting him gently on the back, “Ben's just as terrified about this whole thing as we are, I promise.”

“Yeah,” says Rey, narrowing her eyes at him. “ _ About that--” _

“Um,” says Poe, smiling sheepishly. “I swear, I'd explain, but I don't know either.”

“I  _ really  _ wish I'd stayed at home with Luke and the porgs,” Finn moans, burying his face in Rey’s shoulder.

Poe keeps patting his back consolingly.

 

* * *

 

The room that Ben takes her to is--unexpected.

“This is my um. My tea room,” says Ben, stiltedly.

The walls are draped with curtains or a thick fabric of some sort, a deep red-and-gold and pooling on the similarly thick carpet covering the ground. Leia thinks that she's sinking into it. 

There are richly embroidered cushions piled on the ground, and ridiculously large pillows scattered all over. There is one wall left bare of any pointless curtains, instead occupied by a massive shelf that has  _ actual paper books.  _

In the centre of the room is a little table, low enough that one would have to sit on the ridiculously plush carpet or one of those countless pillows to sit by it. It already has a bottle and two glasses set out.

Baffled, feeling more wrong-footed than she ever has in her life, Leia looks up at Ben. He's let go of her arm, and she isn't sure why she's taken it in the first place.

Before she can ask him one of the  _ several fucking questions  _ she has buzzing around her like one of those bees, the Knight behind them speaks.

“Can I leave now?” she asks. “Because I would literally be anywhere but here right now.”

Ben huffs out a laugh, eyes crinkling at at the edges. “Sure,” he says, and the Knight escapes.

They stand in awkward silence for a while, and Ben says, “Uh, your shoes?”

Leia looks down at them, and then where Ben is pointing. In a corner, there is a little pile of boots and shoes, and one fuzzy pair of slippers that look like tookas.

“Ah,” says Leia, and toes off her shoes. She adds them to the pile.

Ben has sauntered off to fill the glasses, movements fluid and strange. He's folded himself onto into a fluffy pillow, cross-legged.

She sits across from him, as he slides the glass over.

There is another stretch of silence, and Ben's face does--something. 

It twitches, and he's staring at her like he has no idea why she's here. And his chest heaves, and his breath hitches, and he says, lowly, “ _ Mom-- _ ”

Her eyes are burning. “Ben,” she says, and reached over the stupid tiny table to cup the side of his face in her hand.  _ Oh,  _ she thinks, in wonder,  _ oh, stars, he's so big now. _

He shudders out another sob-breath, hands reaching up to hold hers in place. His eyes squeeze shut, and she runs her thumb along his cheekbone.

“I'm here,” she tells him.

 

* * *

 

Armitage Hux blinks in surprise as a bee scuttles cheerfully onto his nose.

“I forgot about you,” he tells it, as it flexes its wings. “You're acting very unlike a bee. Is Kylo still controlling you?”

It doesn't respond. On In his lap, Millie looks up at him with an unimpressed stare.

 

* * *

 

Here is a secret: 

 

A bee, thrumming with the same rhythm in the Force as the man in front of her, lands on her wrist.

“Why the bees?” asks Leia.

Her son, who has somehow grown into this monolith of muscle wrapped in flimsy cotton, looks up at her through wet lashes. 

“They're dead now,” he tells her, like it's a secret he cannot bear to keep. “I'm just moving them so they seem alive.”

The bee, which is actually a tiny puppet apparently, scuttles around her arm. She looks at it, and hopes that this isn't some kind of metaphor.

“Oh,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“ _ Mom,”  _ says Ben, the man who was Ben, with this jagged scar running down the side of his face. His nose is reddening, and Leia just  _ knows  _ it's going to run. Ben never was a pretty crier.

She feels something in her crack.

Is this even the Ben that she knew? This is, after all, the man that killed Han--her husband, his father.

He's done things unspeakable, the hands she'd cleaned off as a child soaked with the blood of  _ so many.  _ He is Kylo Ren, a man who murdered his peers in a temple one night when he was a teenager, who makes moon-eyes at a genocidal maniac.

But the braids in his hair are very familiar, if clumsy.

“You still don't know how to keep your hair clean, I see,” she says, instead of  _ why, Ben.  _

( _ Why, Ben,  _ she wants to say.  _ Why? What did we do, that made you do so many awful things? Was it for power? _ )

Ben sniffles and smiles crookedly, and she sees that his front tooth has been chipped at some point. “Hux makes me shower at least once a day,” he tells her.

_ (Was it something we did? That I did?) _

“Something I never managed,” she replies, and reaches over to tug at his hair. There is a haphazard dusting of sticky pollen caught in his curls, and the flowers look like they're wilting. “Your ability to braid has somehow got  _ worse,  _ Ben, come here. Let me fix it.”

_ What am I doing,  _ thinks Leia, even as Ben blinks slowly and shuffles around the tiny wooden table. 

He turns his back to her, and says, “You need me to lie down, or are you gonna need another cushion?”

Because he has grown to be  _ ridiculously  _ tall, and Leia can't properly reach his head sitting down. She swats his shoulder sharply, and pulls up a cushion with an air of resignation.

Ben sniggers wetly.

_ (What have you become, Ben?) _

She pulls out a flower, and the bee on her arm has joined its twin in a bouncing dance around Leia’s untouched glass.

“This isn't how I imagined this talk would go,” Ben says.

“This isn't how I imagined my  _ life  _ would go,” Leia replies, drily.

“Fair enough.”

 

* * *

 

Hux has taken off his circlet, and put it on Millicent. He did it with all the gravitas and ceremony that the moment deserved, but she still looks unimpressed.

“I'm so  _ tired,”  _ he tells her. “You can be Emperor now. Ky and I are fucking off to some uncharted moon. Forever.”

She  _ mrows _ at him quietly.

He plops backward, cape and all, and stares up. 

It's so  _ silent-- _ he has lived here for going on two years now, but there is something about being planetside for too long that still sets Hux on edge. It's both too loud and too quiet, too many people and too much room.

The stars are both closer and further away.

“I miss engines,” Hux tells the bee, because Millicent has decided to walk off with his crown. “They do the--the hum. They make  _ noise,  _ you know? Background noise. It's--it's nice. Better than fucking  _ crickets _ .”

The bee bumps against his chin, and he thinks it's meant to be consoling.

“You understand me,” he tells it gratefully. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'LL POST THE NEXT ONE SOON I SWEAR


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is a secret:
> 
> Leia has lost her husband, and her brother can't look her in the eye.
> 
> “I know what I've done is unforgivable,” says the boy who grew up to kill her husband, “You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?”
> 
> She cradles his face, wet with tears, in her hands.
> 
> “Because I love you,” she tells him, “even if it's killing me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen i know i said that i'd post soon but i /lied/ i'm a liar i'm certain no one even remembers this self indulgent wreck of a fic i am /sorry/
> 
> s/o to rawringryu for giving me the push to post this bc otherwise this would have stayed in my Hell Folder forever

“What happened with Poe?” she asks, because she doesn't know what else to say.

“I did his hair,” Ben tells her, gravely, “and he told me about the time he tried to start a porg circus.”

“...Ben, that's not--”

“You're doing _my_ hair, aren't you?” Ben points out.

Leia sighs, and says, “And speaking of your hair, how is it so filthy? You can't _possibly_ be showering every day, it's nearly as bad as it was when--”

 

 

“Why the fuck did I become a king?” he asks the bee, because Millicent is presumably attending to her Emperorly duties, “I’m ruling people. I don't even like people. I just like killing them.”

The bee keeps humming. Buzzing. It's strangely calming.

“I just--Snoke had to go,” he tells it, because he needs it to understand, “We were never going to escape him otherwise. He was--he was like a tumor, we needed to cut him out.”

Hux closes his eyes. He sees, for a dizzy moment, Kylo wild-eyed and down on one knee, swearing fealty. It isn't a happy memory. He feels like in another universe, it might have been--having one’s lover bend the knee and swear eternal loyalty sounds like a good thing but.

But--

But Kylo Ren is a man with shaky hands and a slow smile, who had been used as a melee weapon for all the time that Hux has known him. He _refused_ to be another master, someone who commands his power. He--he _won’t._

“And then, this just seemed like the thing to do. The natural progression of things. It's the best way to keep us safe,” he whispers.

“And he's so _happy,”_ Hux says, and his heart is being squeezed out of his throat, “ _Stars_ , I've never seen him smile, before all of this. Not a _smile_ smile, you know?”

The bee is still buzzing. He lies there, listening to it, and wonders if he's meditating. He feels floaty.

“I'm so drunk I've catapulted myself into a midlife crisis,” he says, in a strange moment of clarity, a few minutes later.

Ugh, Phasma was right, he is _not a fun drunk._

 

 

“--and I feel so empty,” Ben says, “like something’s been carved out of me, and I'll never be whole again. I'm _so exhausted_ all the time, it's like I've died.”

“But you're happy?”

“Deliriously,” says Ben, and flinches when her fingers snag on a knot. There is an insect leg and a blade of grass caught in it. “But I feel--a little defective.”

Leia smiles ruefully, and murmurs, “I know how you feel.”

 

 

Hux breaks into Phasma’s room. It isn't hard. He's got all the access codes in the palace on his datapad, and it only takes him four tries to punch it in.

The bee, settled on his shoulder, sits placidly as he bursts in.

“PHASMA,” he says, perhaps a bit too loud, “WE NEED TO--no, stop screaming, it's just me.”

He frowns, because Phasma is on the bed and. Not wearing clothes. Naked. And bent over another person, who is similarly unclothed.

The second person makes a high pitched noise that might be a hysterical giggle, and covers her face in Phasma’s shoulder.

“Hux, what the _fuck_ ,” says Phasma, pulling the sheets up over the both of them and glowering. Hux stands there, blinking slowly.

“Is that Desir?” he asks, and this only serves to make the Knight laugh harder. Hux decides that he won't ask, and will perhaps submit himself to reconditioning in the morning, because Phasma’s bare ass was not something he'd ever wanted to see, and would like it scoured from his mind entirely.

“ _Hux why are you in my room,”_ she says, incredulous, “Are you drunk?”

“Probably,” he tells her, earnestly. “I'm here to inform you that Ky and I are running away, quite possibly forever. You are in charge of feeding Millicent in our absence.”

Phasma stares, blankly. “About five of those words were in Basic,” she says.

“I think there was something about feeding Milli, in Huttese,” says Desir, muffled by Phasma’s shoulder and somewhat breathless with laughter.

“I'm already the only one that remembers to do that,” Phasma says, sounding baffled.

Hux hums, and promptly plops himself on the ground. He's just realized how strangely tired his legs are.

“I think I'm going to retire,” he says, imperious, “to sleep. Goodnight, General. Lady Ren.”

Phasma reaches over and pulls on a tank top, and says, “Right, you're talking in Mandalorian and I'm dragging your skinny ass to bed. This is Kylo’s problem, not mine.”

“I don't even _know_ Mandalorian,” he says, indignant, in impeccable Mandalorian. He lies back on the floor, and huffs out, “You might be sex-addled, but this sort of incompetence is inexcusable, General. I'm speaking perfect Basic.”

Desir has by now bypassed actual laughter and is instead making strange wheezing noises into a pillow. Phasma, who has found a pair of shorts on the ground and pulled it on, bends down and tugs him up by the arm.

“I am glad you're wearing clothes, your ass is almost as pasty as mine and it's unpleasant to look at,” he tells her, through a heavy tongue. He frowns, because the words he's saying comes out strange and warped. How long has that been happening?

“Right, _Emperor_ ,” she huffs, pulling his arm around her shoulder and supporting his weight, “Let's get you to bed, you utter lightweight.”

“Kylo has a wonderful ass,” he says. “It's very soft. And firm. Somehow. It's the best thing in the galaxy--you think I should have a monument made for it?”

“When the fuck did you even _learn_ Binary?”

As Phasma manhandles him out of her quarters, Desir Ren makes a strangled sort of keen, before going back to silent giggles. Hux wonders if she's a little drunk.

 

 

It's very hard to hate your own son, especially when he's in a flimsy cotton dress and sniffling sadly onto your shoulder, his big hands clinging to you like he's going to fall apart if he doesn't.

He isn't outright sobbing anymore, and her shoulder is soggy with tears and snot. Ben has never been a pretty crier.

“I'm sorry,” he tells her, voice thick, “I think. I'm not sure. I don't remember why I ran, anymore.”

She strokes his back, and wonders where all of her rage went.

There is a pile of flowers and little bits of grass and dirt she picked out of his hair to a side. The bees have migrated there, and are still spinning.

“I'm sorry I killed Han,” he says, distantly, “because it _didn't_ make me stronger. It just made me sadder.”

She snorts, and murmurs, “Ben, honey, _I_ could've told you that.”

“Yeah, but when a guy lives in your head for most of your life,” Ben tells her, flatly, “you don't need much encouragement to believe him.”

Leia sighs.

 

 

“Are you honestly telling me that you braided the pattern for devotion and love into Poe Dameron’s hair because you  _felt like it?_ ”

“Armie’s hair isn't long enough!” Ben says, sounding put-upon. “And I _am_ in love with Poe, so it still counts.”

Leia blinks, glass halfway to her mouth.

“You're...in love with Poe?” she asks, tentatively. 

Ben looks at her with one eyebrow raised. “Yeah? I kinda have been since we were kids, mom.”

“...what about Hux?”

“What about him?” he asks, frowning.

“I mean,” she purses her lips, “is he aware?”

“Well, _y eah_ ,” says Ben, as though the very _notion_ of his husband not being aware of and fully supporting his long-time love for an enemy pilot was unheard of, “But we decided a threesome with him would end really badly.”

Leia takes a long swig.

 

* * *

  

Here is a secret:

Leia has lost her husband, and her brother can't look her in the eye.

“I know what I've done is unforgivable,” says the boy who grew up to kill her husband, “You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?”

She cradles his face, wet with tears, in her hands.

“Because I love you,” she tells him, “even if it's killing me.”

 

 

“...you had a crush on _Mon Mothma_?” says Ben, sounding scandalized.

Leia shrugs, mouth unwillingly twisting into a grin. She has no idea how the conversation ended up here. She wanted to tell Ben so many things, but this wasn't one of them. The wine bottle is empty, and she suspects that this might have contributed somewhat.

“She was a very capable woman,” she says, “and incredibly beautiful.”

“Ew,” he says, as though he were not currently covered in a truly obscene assortment of hickeys, “Did you ever fuck her?”

“No, but I sure wanted to,” she says, drily. Then, “Why are we talking about this?”

“I had a crush on Wedge,” Ben tells her, gravely, “and I wanted him to whisk me away for a beautiful adventure in the stars.”

Leia, horrified, sputters. “ _Ben!”_ she chokes out, “He's--old! Older than _me!_ ”

Ben looks unrepentant and amused, grinning crookedly. “He was a dashing pilot, and I was like. Ten. I had a heart attack every time he talked to me.”

She covers her face with one hand and snorts. “Oh god,” she says, “we thought you hated him! You'd run behind Chewie every time he showed up!”

“Love was too complex an emotion for my tiny brain to process,” he tells her, entirely serious, and Leia can't stop laughing.

  
  


Here is a secret:

They have so much to talk about. Leia has so much to say. They owe each other explanations, and apologies.

But not now. Now, Leia is weary and holding her son and--

  


Here is a secret:

There is something in Kylo Ren that has been tired for longer than he can remember. He doesn’t know if that’s Snoke’s doing, or if this is just who he is. Ben Solo, the boy who knew too much and too little, who felt ancient even when he was six years old and regularly breaking furniture in catastrophic temper tantrums.

Then, sometime around his mid-teens (oh, the joys of puberty), Ben Solo discovered that there was a part of him that could be thoughtlessly cruel. And then he convinced himself that this wasn’t cruelty. That he was just misunderstood, that _they deserved it, Mom._

And then he developed a truly all-consuming rage for the universe in general. And that’s the thing that fuelled him through every goddamn thing Kylo Ren has ever done--from waking up one night and grasping his lightsaber with shaking hands with the intent of brutally murdering his peers, to Force-choking people because he feels like it.

It wasn’t all Snoke. Some of it was, but Kylo Ren is very aware of how _brightly_ his rage burned. And he has made his peace with it. He regrets many things, but not that.

Of course, now all of that rage is gone. And he feels a little dead inside. And compensates for it with exhibitionism, starting scandals and semi-public sex. So--so there’s that.

  
 

Here is another:

Kylo Ren is most certainly Not Ben Solo. Not anymore. One might even argue that the Ben Solo that _so many people_ seem to remember never existed. He feels, to Kylo, like an idea. A could-have-been.

Leia Organa isn’t really a mother anymore. She hasn’t been for years. Hunting your warlord son across the stars does _things_ to you, and she doesn’t know who she is to Ben anymore. Not really.

They are different people. Strangers, almost.

But they have the same exhausted look in their eyes.

 

 

“--I don’t even remember why I always so angry,” he tells her, quietly, “I can’t remember why getting stronger was so important, Mom, or why I listened to Snoke or why I killed Dad--I don’t remember why--”

“Oh, Ben--”

  


“I think I’m too old for rage,” she tells him.

“I feel you,” says Ben, “I’ve aged, like, fifty years in the last three.”

Leia looks pointedly at the livid bruises all over him, in the shape of teeth and fingers.

“Mentally,” he adds, grinning. “Physically, I’m--”

“Ben, _no._ ”

  


“Yes, but what possible appeal could he hold?” Leia asks, almost desperately. “Assuming that he's in some way attractive to you-- he is a _terrible person!”_

“Well, yeah,” Ben says, drily, “but, like. So am I.”

“He blew up an entire star system!” she says, jerking her hands around in frustration. She is, possibly, a little drunk.

“That was before, mom,” says Ben, looking amused, which he shouldn’t be, his husband is a _terrible person_ and Leia does _not approve,_ “He’s a lot less murder-y now that he’s got ultimate power.”

“He holds public, televised executions for anyone who crosses him, Benjamin, that isn’t exactly--”

“That,” says Ben, sheepishly, “is kinda my fault.”

 

* * *

 

Armitage Hux, Emperor of the New Order, is lying face down on his bed with a distinct air of misery.

“I need a vacation,” he says, mournfully. His breath tastes stale and disgusting, and he is distantly aware that talking to a bee resting on his pillow is not a good thing. It’s bad. He’s meant to be dignified.

“Ten minutes away from Kylo and I’m falling apart like a badly stacked house of cards,” he mutters. Fuck, he really is pathetic, maybe Phasma’s right and they really are codependent--

Hux’s head jerks up, accompanied by a sharp inhale, and he stares blankly at the headboard.

That actually makes _sense_ . He hasn’t been apart from Kylo often enough to notice, but being physically away from him _has_ recently lead to feeling all-round awful.

But maybe he's jumping the blaster--he should think about this methodologically--

  


Exhibit A:  he felt Really Fucking Cranky all day today, right up until Kylo sleep-walked into a meeting.

Counter Argument: this could just be regular exhaustion and seeing Leia Organa’s Goddamn Face.

 

Exhibit B: a month ago, Kylo was abed with a nasty cold as a result of falling asleep in the gardens and neglecting to wake up when it started raining _like a functioning person._ This coincided with three previously loyal guards being executed for treason. That this cheered Kylo up was incidental.

Counter Argument: Hux really likes killing people.

 

Exhibit C: all the holocalls, when even when they are in the same fucking palace. He gets antsy without them. Not murder-antsy, but antsy just the same.

Counter Argument: Kylo thinks it's fucking hilarious that they do this. Hux endeavors to do things that make Kylo laugh.

 

Exhibit D: he feels _wrong_ when he can't feel the quiet nudge of Kylo Ren in the back of his head. When they are further apart, with Kylo’s control of the Force so strange and finicky, it isn't safe to be on in constant mental contact. And Hux feels strangely bereft if he thinks something snide and doesn't hear the flare of someone else's amusement in response.

Counter Argument: is this not how a relationship works? Craving one another to the point of insanity?

 

Exhibit E: Hux built this Empire for him, and for him he would give it up in a heartbeat.

Counter Argument: he also might give it up for a good Hosnian cigar and a long nap, really. The death of all of those amazing cigars is the only thing he really regrets about his brief planet-murdering stint.

 

Exhibit F: the very thought of Kylo Ren leaving him makes his entire being clench up in fear. He suspects that, were Kylo to die before he does, he'd commit either galactic genocide or just lie down and _die._ He can't remember not loving him. This is not an exaggeration. Armitage Hux has never done things in halves, and love is no different.

Counter Argument: see Exhibit D

 

 

Hux groans, and slumps back down. Chin propped up on in a pillow, he mumbles, “My thought process is fucked and I cannot come to a definite conclusion. I am also slurring, which is terrible.”

But it's possible that Kylo isn't the only one who's rooted into the other _so_ goddamn deep that the application of therapy might be required.

Counter Argument: this--isn't surprising. Even if it _is_ true, and Hux needs more data and a sober analysis--but even if it _is_ true, then.

It changes nothing, really. He's still ridiculously in love with Kylo, who is still in love with him. They are still Too Attached. The world will keep turning.

Sure, it isn't healthy, but what about them is?

“What do you think?” Hux says, vaguely content, turning to the bee that had landed on his pillow.

And stares blankly, because it is lying on its side, dead.

“Oh, dear,” he says, “I hope that isn't some kind of sign.”

 

* * *

  

The completely unnecessary pillows and cushions and quilts scattered around the room turned out to serve a purpose, because Leia is currently leaning against a wall with her son wrapped in two (2) quilts and drooling slightly on her lap.

 

(“I get tired real easy,” Ben had mumbled, distantly, “after, you know. Snoke. ‘S why I'm always sleeping. And also my brain is wired to Hux? Which is why I keep sleepwalking to him.”

And Leia sighed the sigh of a woman resigned to loss.)

 

He looks almost peaceful. Not quite. But he is silent, and he snores softly and is lying prone by her--like he trusts her. And isn't that something? Her son is curled up on her lap like a child, because he trusts her. Sort of.

She is stroking his face, the scar that Rey gave him on in a dying planet. He has so many scars, this wild man that her Ben grew into.

By her feet lie the bees, silent and still. They'd fallen from their stuttering orbit the second Kylo fell asleep. She tries not to think about a potential metaphor for this.

She thinks that she is at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE EPILOGUE TO THIS EPILOGUE IS NOW UP AND I CAN R E S T


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an epilogue of an epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, this fic is terribly self-indulgent and it shows. It leaks fluff. It's the written version of an overstuffed pillow and several blankets. I needed to write this.
> 
> That being said, I'm still stunned that anyone read this at all, honestly. I write rarely, because my life is like that. Like That.

Poe Dameron blinks in surprise as Kylo-Definitely-Not-Ben stumbles blearily up to him. He’s trying to find Finn, who had gone out looking for Rey, who could never stay in one place like a normal person. 

Kylo’s wearing the same ratty old dress as yesterday, and it’s somehow more creased. His face is still puffy from sleep, eyes barely open, and his hair has somehow been untangled and arranged into neat braids around his head. He smiles that slow smile, the one that crinkles around his eyes that have no right looking that soft.

“Um, hi? How’d it go?” asks Poe.

“We talked,” Kylo says, absently, “and I fell asleep on her. And drooled on her.”

Poe isn’t surprised. He feels like he should be, but well.

“I’m glad,” he says.

Kylo’s eyes, which had previously been looking over Poe’s shoulder in a half-asleep daze, turn to him and sharpen somewhat. He purses his lips, which are still chapped and bitten.

“You kept your braids,” he says, looking--Poe isn’t sure what his face is doing.

Awkwardly, because he feels off-step the way he suspects is an ongoing theme with his conversations with Kylo Ren, he touches the now somewhat ruined braids on his own head, unraveling and flattened on one side. He’s also still wearing the clothes he went to bed in. Because--because Rey.

“Yeah,” he says, and thinks of something else to say.

And Kylo Ren keeps looking at him, still soft with sleep the way Poe is beginning to think is a constant for him. There are creases on the side of his face; from Leia Organa’s lap? And there are no more bees spinning in circles around his head. His feet are still bare. His lips are still chapped.

He looks like he could be Ben Solo. He’s soft and sweet like Ben Solo, smiles slow and gorgeous like Ben Solo. He has Ben Solo’s braids in his curly hair, Ben Solo’s crooked teeth peeking out from between bitten lips.

But Ben Solo never stared at him like this. Unblinking and sure, like he knows something that Poe does not. 

Poe thinks that something in him is--mourning, maybe. It’s jarring. He doesn’t know why.

“I--” And Poe wants, inexplicably, to grab that face and kiss those bitten lips. He does. He wants to kiss Ben Solo as sweet as he was once upon a time, he wants to kiss Ben Solo back. Kylo Ren is soft in his own way, but it’s jagged and terrifying and Poe wants to kiss him, too. 

And Kylo must know that. Poe remembers how he used to slide into minds, dipping his toes into other people’s thoughts in between breaths. Kylo  _ must _ know. 

He thinks it’s longing, that clogs his throat and chokes him. 

“I gotta go,” he says, instead of kissing the man that ripped his mind apart, “Rey’s lost, and I think Finn got lost trying to find her.”

And Kylo Ren keeps looking at him, solemnly. Like he  _ knows _ , and has made his peace with it. 

“Wild night?” he says, smiling crookedly. 

“Not all of us are comfortable being behind what used to be enemy lines,” says Poe.

And Kylo hums, still smiling, and leans forward. For a second, Poe panics, his entire body thinking,  _ no wait fuck wait no _ \--

\--and he feels chapped lips against his forehead, warm and brief. 

“He’s cute,” says Kylo Ren after he pulls back, face still too close to his, “that Finn. If you don’t get with him soon, I’ll have to orchestrate something drastic.”

Poe groans, “Is this revenge for the thing with Wedge? It is, isn’t it.”

“You deserve this,” he says, airily. His eyes are still sharp on him. Poe isn’t sure what he’s trying to say.

Poe huffs, and his heart is--doing something, and Kylo Ren straightens. He walks off, with an airy, “Good luck looking for your boyfriend! Don’t let Phasma see you running around in your pyjamas--she gets enough of that from me!”

Poe smiles.

  
  


Hux is woken up by Kylo sliding into bed with next to him, warm body settling around him seamlessly. As large arms curl around him, so does his mind; easing and humming in sync with his own. the universe slots into place.

Despite this, Hux immediately wants to die, because he feels, in that moment, as though he understands intimately how Starkiller felt that one time it blew apart. He squeezes his eyes shut and groans into his pillow.

“You’ve missed a meeting,” says Kylo, into his neck, “and Phasma says that you aren’t allowed to drink anymore.”

“I want to die,” says Hux, into his pillow, “And Millie’s Emperor now. I’ve decreed it thus.”

Kylo hums, and rubs small circles onto his back. Hux feels the ache in his head ease, slowly. He thinks, absently, that Kylo shouldn’t use the Force like this. It’s irresponsible, when he is still so-- _tired_ , all the time.

“I cried on my mom and then slept on her,” says Kylo, suddenly. “How was your night?”

Hux tries to remember. He thinks he recalls Phasma’s ass which--ugh. This must be the Force repaying him for all the times Phasma has been assaulted by the sight of his and Kylo’s asses. Karma, he thinks, is a terrible thing.

he pushes his head out of the pillow and squints at Kylo. Who is backlit by the sunlight streaming in from the window behind him, resplendent and beautiful.

“I love you,” he tells him.

And Kylo laughs, delighted. Hux doesn’t know if it’s because of his confession, or because Kylo has seen his mental recap of last night’s disaster.

“I know,” says Kylo Ren, curled up on his bed, warm and safe for as long as Hux is able to protect him, “Love you too, Armie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to have Kylo and Poe kiss, and it was going to be terrible and bittersweet and linger forever in the back of their minds but. It didn't feel right. They aren't the people they were, and the people they are now haven't had the chance to make this happen the right way. Maybe someday, they will. (In this scenario, both hux and finn are totally aware of this, ofc)
> 
> i hope you liked this little trash fic about our boys being happy and sad and terrible sometime in an AU dear to my heart. It was cathartic to write.

**Author's Note:**

> i regret everything, kinda. But also Kylo needs to wear clothes while sleeping. It's a Problem. Maybe a onesie? So he can't sleep-strip?


End file.
